Macking 64

Upgrade for 7200
Once considered impossible, Sonnet Technologies will be shipping a 400 MHz G3 upgrade for the 7200 PowerMac sometime this year. Go to Sonnett for more information. The upgrade uses a PCI slot for the upgrade, and requires you to move RAM DIMMs onto the upgrade card, leaving a small DIMM behind for booting purposes.
Starting from a CD will boot into the regular processor, so there should be enough RAM left behind on the main board for such eventualities. Assume 16-24 megs should be enough.
This is really good news for those with 7200s, because the only option used to be outright replacement. It will cost $500, but it is still cheaper than replacing the Mac.

Global Village Gotcha
Ah for the old days when big computer-industry companies didn't swallow up small ones. (That was about a two year period in the early '90s, I think.) Global got swallowed by Boca and, although they still make the best fax software in the business, their new USB modems are not compatible with most USB hubs! I get a message "Not enough power for unknown device" at startup that won't go away. If I start without the modem plugged in, the Global control panel doesn't load.
A workaround seems to be to wait until the startup is finished, plug in the modem, and then open the control panel and click on the Select Port icon. Then it seems to find the power to work.
Boca tech support says that they found only one out of the three USB hubs they tested supplied enough power and suggest plugging the modem into the Mac directly. They said that the Belken hub was the one that worked with their modem but insisted that they didn't recommend it, either. Hello, what about the hub? With keyboard in one and hub in the other, that's it for the Mac's ports!
Simple, they say, just plug the keyboard into the hub. Trouble is, if you do that you can no longer start the Mac from the keyboard, and although the mouse will work, you may have to unplug and replug in the keyboard every time you restart. That's a real help, guys. Any plans to simply provide external power for the modem in the future, just like all their conventional serial modems, since this is a known problem? Nope. They maintain that no one has a problem using the keyboard in the hub, except for the disabled startup button, but I found that MacAlly keyboards (one in particular) are disabled and, after the startup is finished, must be unplugged and replugged in to become active.

TCP/IP problems with SoundJam MP Plus
This one bit me squarely on the butt and I didn't know what was wrong at first. I just bought SoundJam MP Plus, the $60 MP3 player/encoder from Casady & Greene, installed it, and later went to check my email. I got TCP/IP errors and could not send or receive.
It took a couple of tests to realize what may have happened, so I disabled the SoundJam extension I had just installed and lo, TCP/IP worked again. I had originally had problems installing the program in the first place due to crashes on starting the installer (on both my 8.6 G3 and my 8.1 7200). I was ready to call tech support on Monday, or return the program.
Well, I discovered that I didn't need the installer; I could just copy the SoundJam folder directly off of the CD, and manually install the extension and control strip module. That led to the TCP problem.
I next visited the C&G site, which told me that there was a newer version than what was in the box (2.5.1 vs. 2.1) so I downloaded the updater. Presto, extension/TCP confict fixed.
Too bad there was not a peep about this problem on their FAQ or in the search-for-comments area of the web site. Maybe this is why Fry's discontinued carrying the product, which I found at the Computer Store in Tigard. Now that the problems are fixed, everything works great and I can start ripping down my CD collection. As a player it works just fine; it comes with a nice collection of "skins" that change the appearance of the program (with more available on their web site), and I will report next month how well it does as an MP3 recorder.

Comet Not So Bad?
I got this letter after my missive about Comet Systems and their tracking software, which I had read about in various Mac sites. She asked to have her side presented, so here it is, verbatim:
Dear Mr. Pearce,
The issue of online privacy has become a major topic of conversation this year, as evidenced by your recent article "Macking It - It's Worse for Window" August 2000, Computer Bits. At Comet Systems, we take privacy very seriously, and have neither collected, nor sold browsing history and our privacy policy is easily accessible from all of our Websites, and our products. We were distressed upon reading your statements regarding the Comet Cursor as they are erroneous.
We request a retraction of your comments regarding the Comet Cursor and feel confident that you will agree to this once you review the facts of the matter. To this end, an outline of Comet's privacy policies and our past involvement in the privacy debate follows.
* Comet Systems has never tracked users, nor have we ever participated in the collection of any personally identifiable information on any Comet Cursor user.
* Comet Systems does not log visitors to any cursor-enabled sites, and does not track where they go at any time.
* When the Comet Cursor is downloaded, we do not ask for a name or e-mail address. Instead, we assign each client a random number. The data that travels back to Comet's server is a cursor impression log--a file that tells us that a cursor was displayed and the random number pertaining to the user. This impression log contains nothing about the identity of the user.
* By counting cursor impressions, we are able to give our partners information about the number of cursors displayed at their site. We cannot and do not trace any activity back to any individual and never know their identity. We do not track any users or profile any users and we never have. All we are doing is counting cursors.
Our "privacy flap" began in November when a privacy advocate noticed that we were sending cursor impression data back to our servers, and called a reporter from the Associated Press about it. The reporter wrote an article incorrectly implying that Comet Systems could track a user and know his or her surfing habits, and saying that we were doing this covertly. This information is and was incorrect and the Associated Press later corrected their story. In the interim, several hundred publications printed the report, creating what has been a difficult-to-manage rumor mill consisting of misinformation.
The story failed to note that Comet does not collect names or email addresses of our users, and that we have no personally identifiable information on our users whatsoever. The story also failed to report that we have never tracked anyone, profiled any users, or sold any data to any company.
Fairly quickly after the story ran on the AP, other media picked it up. After being contacted by Comet Systems with the accurate story, a number of media outlets ran retractions and corrections -- including such respected publications as Business Week, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Industry Standard. Below, I've attached several of these pieces for your review, which tell the story in full.
12/6/99 Industry Standard, "Privacy Story Moves Like a Comet"
12/9/99 Christian Science Monitor, "Media Didn't Give Comet Systems a Chance to Explain"
Things have gotten much better of late, but it is very hard to put rumors entirely to rest once they begin to spread. We recently had an incident in which ZDNet and PC Magazine (owned by Ziff Davis publishing) accused us of being "spyware." They have since retracted that story as well, both online and in print. We welcome you to read their retraction:
7/24/00 ZDNet, Retraction of Anchor Desk story, "Who's Watching You Surf"

TouchBase Gone
Those of you with old Performas kicking around might have a program called TouchBase and DateBook still on them. You have probably kept them, planning to learn how to use them some day.
Forget it. Just go ahead and trash them. They never made it past Y2K. If you are currently using them, you know this already. If, somehow, you used the contacts part (TouchBase) without actually ever entering a year, better export your data and get Now Contact/Now UpToDate instead because it won't be long before it dies for good.
Meanwhile, if you have been using the Dialing feature of Now Contact and upgrade to a new Mac, you will not be able to use it to dial through your modem any more. The original Now Contact used to make direct calls to the serial (modem) port but new Macs use the Comm Toolbox and a modem call is now a system call. This will not be fixed until Now Contact 4.1 or later.
But there is a workaround. Just go into the Preferences and tell Now Contact to dial through the speaker instead of the modem. Pick up the receiver, hold it up to the speaker and click dial. Works just fine. Hey, you had to pick up the receiver eventually, right?

Quarterly ObjectSupportLib Warning
I am going to repeat this every three months for the benefit of new readers and people who missed the last one. ObjectSupportLib is a very troublesome library file that is installed in your Extensions Folder by obsolete, yet still available, applications, including ACT 2.8, Adobe PhotoDeluxe 2.0 and earlier, and SoundEdit 16.
Worst of all, I just discovered that it is also installed by the HP DeskJet 810C installer! This is a currently shipping product which says, on the CD, for 8.1 or later, and USB printers. Well, OSL has been prohibited after 8.0 and someone should have caught this. The proof is right in the installer log, too, so there is no doubt that HP is at fault. If you have this printer, trash the CD and go to their web site and get the latest driver installer, which does not contain ObjectSupportLib.
This can cause annoying conflicts and occasional crashes under OS 8.x and severe crashes and loss of data under OS 9.x. This happened to a client just now. She has an OS9 iBook and had damage so bad that Norton could not fix it. It would not start up, and no files could be recovered. And the trouble with iBooks and iMacs is, even if the files can be recovered, there is no way, when running from a CD-ROM, to plug in an external floppy or zip drive because their needed drivers are not in the system folder on the CD.
The next release of OS9 will automatically disable this extension, but unless you are running System 7.x (where it is required) you must take the effort yourself to ensure that this item is NOT in your Extensions Folder. If you find it, trash it on the spot.
To protect yourself from future installs surprising you, create a folder with the same name in the Extensions Folder. Then, when a reinstall of something tries to put in the lib file, it will fail and warn you (usually). Then, you must remove the folder, let the install proceed, and restart and immediately remove it. Once you do so, restart again.

Updates for OS9
Version Tracker has put together a list of needed upgrades for OS9 users, including 3rd-party applications that need upgrading to run with 9. Very useful resource. If you are getting or just got a new Mac with 9, or are considering upgrading, read this site first.
By now, most of the problems people have been having with OS9 have been handled, both with Apple's 9.0.4 update and with incompatible applications being updated by their publishers. My original warning still holds true, though: if you are running 8.6 now, do not upgrade unless you have a specific reason to do so. If you are happy with 8.1 you can stay with it for a while longer. (Hell, if your particular Mac does what you need it to under System 7, don't bother upgrading it! You will only have trouble when you want to use the Internet.) If you are running 8.0 upgrade to 8.1; if you are running 8.5 or 8.5.1; upgrade to 8.6. Both upgrades are free from Apple and fix bugs in/add features to the earlier versions.
New Macs that ship with OS9 will cause you pain only if you later install obsolete and incompatible software. Ask an expert, or at least visit VersionTracker, before you do a clean install of OS9.

OSX? Not Me
I have actually seen installs of the public beta release of OSX, and while it looks interesting, I will not be installing this myself. First, I would have to upgrade to OS9.0.4 in order to use X at all because "classic mode" requires that OS9 be present and able to load and run non-X-native applications. Say goodbye 8.6? Not just yet, thanks.
Plus, it does not yet support Epson (or any other non-Apple) printers, and does not support AirPort. Other issues are accumulating at Macintouch on the OSX Reports page.
My advice to you is to skip it. Unless you like hacking bigtime and have patience enough to wait for the bug fixes, you are liable to be quite frustrated and unable to use your Mac. Let others be the wind dummies for Apple's new OS and ignore the hype. Plenty of time to think about adopting it, in the fall of 2001.

No Microsoft products were used in the production of this column.

email mp at moonmac dot com. (I took out the mailto link because that's how the spammers find me.)